JERSEY SHORE — A recent tour of the Jersey Shore Elementary School building by members of the district’s board resulted in differing viewpoints on whether a long-range plan to move all elementary students to that building was even feasible with the existing structure.

“One thing that I think we all learned is the fact that there are spaces in that school that are available for extra classes,” said board member Michael Allen.

“There was actually more than I thought. Looking at the drawing, it’s hard to tell what room was what for sure, but there are definitely more rooms available in that building than I thought there was to start with,” Allen added.

On the more immediate issue before the board — whether to close Salladasburg Elementary, Allen questioned whether the savings achieved by doing that would be tracked.

“Is there a plan in place to track anything like that,” Allen asked.

Superintendent Dr. Brian Ulmer said that could be made a part of the budget process.

“Say we want to designate x-amount in the budget to a reserve here or reserve there or capital projects or what the board decides,” Ulmer said, reiterating that it would be a part of the budget process.

The savings that could be realized by closing a building had been calculated at $800,000 through attritional savings, according to Business manager and Board Secretary Ben Enders, which means that staff positions would not be eliminated through furloughs.

“…We can look at their certificate list and move people rather than go out and replace that person with that certificate. We will look at the certificate list and make strategic decisions to move so we’re not cutting,” Ulmer said.

In terms of a long-range plan for district facilities, Ulmer contended that could change every time a decision is made “from financing to deciding what the project scope was to when you were comfortable having them coming in to do it to what the lead times are for the materials. All that is variable throughout the process.”

Allen said that he felt a plan needed to be in place to understand what “we are doing with, say, the middle school. Or are we closing two elementary schools within the next three years…what’s the concept behind the ten-year outlook,” he continued questioning.

Board member Mary Thomas focused on what the ultimate goal might be.

“The ultimate goal as I see it and correct me if I’m wrong, you’re looking at basically in town being a campus — elementary, middle school and high school. And then elementary will be K to four, and middle school will be five to eight, and high school nine to 12, with CTE,” she said. “Am I correct on that assumption?”

“That’s the way it’s drafted but there’s a lot of decisions that would have to take place between now and that being reality,” Ulmer answered.

Thomas countered that the problem is really with the middle school being switched from grades six to eight to a school with grades five to eight.

“Before we get too far into the process, don’t we need to have some guarantee that school will hold a five through eight and there’s room to do it? Isn’t that an architectural decision?” she asked.

Thomas felt that determining if it was feasible due to size limitations needed to be one of the early steps in the process.

“…It’s a whole different ball game if we can’t do it. I just think that’s one of the early steps that has to happen,” Thomas said.

When asked point blank if there would be enough space at the middle school to move fifth grade without doing a major overhaul, Ulmer said, “I believe, yes, without a major overhaul.”

That’s when the discussion became a little heated, as Thomas claimed that was an unknown.

“We don’t know that. That’s the question that has to be answered. Whether you look at the layout. Have you laid out a five through eight in that building,” she asked.

“I heard him say I believe. It’s not, ‘I believe.’ We have to know that you can,” Thomas responded.

When board President Michelle Stemler reminded the board that the 10-year plan was not actually what was up for discussion at the moment, Allen said that he would like to know what the game plan is.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out here, because we never seem to have a goal in mind here. It’s always, what about this? What about that? Let’s figure out something here and get something established,” Allen said. “Nobody has an idea of what we want to do here.”

Stemler said that she felt Ulmer’s presentation had laid out specifically what needed to be done.

“What I gathered according to the presentation that I saw was we’re in a financial place that we don’t have money to fix those buildings,” Stemmler said.

“There was a lot of renovations all over the place. So in my mind, at the moment, I can’t think specifically of what they were, but that was the direction that I was under the impression that we were headed to do — building projects to keep our buildings running, and as we were doing them, as time passed on, addressing…exactly how that’s going to look as it approaches from year to year to year. Yes, he does have something down on paper, but to say it’s going to stay that way from year to year, depends upon finances, depends upon votes, board changes. It depends upon many different factors,” Stemmler said.

Allen returned to his claim that the district needed a plan. Board member Harry Brungard offered his idea of what that plan might look like.

“My thoughts would be this,” Brungard said. “If we closed a school, we’re going to have some money savings, and at that time, we should be able to get a loan…We’re going to have money then to do the repairs. And then my idea of doing these repairs would be to maybe separate the schools out — middle school, JSE, Avis, Sal, whatever it is, and have SitelogIQ prioritize what has to be done on those repairs, what they think would be the number one thing to have to be repaired, along with Dr. Ulmer, Mark Wall. I would like to see the building principal, because they’re living in that building, they’ll probably know more about that building,” Brungard said.

“But to me that would be the direction — close the school, have the money to get the funds and, once we have the funds, we can prioritize,” he said.

Ulmer cautioned the board about tying themselves to a plan at this point.

“I’m not disagreeing with the process Mr. Brungard laid out, but regardless what the process is, there’s going to be input over time, and it could change,” Ulmer said.

“So my fear is I could give you a detail, A to B right now. And I think we’ve all heard, and I’ve had this, I’ve heard it 100 times in this room. We had a plan and you didn’t do it. So do you want to write a plan and have it on paper and present it to the public and listen to the next 10 years of ‘you had a plan and then you didn’t follow through with it’? That’s my fear,” Ulmer said.

“But you can certainly identify what an ultimate goal is and how you get from here to here can go 25 different directions,” Thomas said.

In the public comments section of the meeting, following the board’s discussion, former board member Merrill Sweitzer suggested that the board should do away with the Hunt feasibility study.

“Take this Hunt study, put it on the shelf, just put it away … Many, many times I’ve gone through the schools in this school district. District (buildings) are in excellent condition. Our custodial staff and our maintenance staff are taking care of our schools. We don’t need to renovate. We don’t need to add on. We don’t need to do anything, but just continue to march out until at least 2030. Pay off our $15 million debt and forget closing schools, forget looking at doing what the Hunt people are recommending. Because I totally disagree with the Hunt study — unrealistic. Came up with 280-some projects on our schools, our schools that are in excellent condition,” Sweitzer said.

“I can’t think of a reason now why we should close Salladasburg School. I haven’t heard any reason for closing Salladasburg School from the superintendent, from the administration, from anyone. But there is no reason to close where you have 200 and some children, scores in English, math, science are the highest…there’s no reason to take that school away from our children. And it disturbs me. I’m really disturbed. I’ve had, like I said, 20 years in this business and I’ve had four years on the board here in Jersey Shore. I know what I’m talking about when I say, don’t do anything with our facilities. Totally ignore the Hunt study. Let’s just get back to work and educating kids,” Sweitzer said.